Microsoft has slashed the price of its standard Azure support plan to just $100 a month, from its previous price point of $300 a month, alongside a new vow to halve its response time if something goes wrong from two hours to just an hour for critical cases.
The discounts aren't just for standard business customers though, as Microsoft's Government Azure customers will also see the price of their plans drop from $375 per month to $125 per month. The new rates apply for all regions, except for customers in Germany.
"Azure is continuously improving and expanding the range of options to help you accelerate your cloud journey," the company said in the price reduction announcement. "From the built-in Azure Advisor service that provides free, proactive, and personalized best practice recommendations, to direct connection with Azure engineers through multiple levels of Azure support."
The company added that these changes mean Azure now offers the most cost-effective and predictable support offering amongst major cloud providers.
AWS's support packages are included for free in its basic service, although there's a charge of 3% of the monthly AWS usage (or $29, whichever is greater) for developers, and a tiered service for business accounts, starting at $100 or $15,000 for enterprise customers. However, its response times are already an hour for the business and enterprise plans.
Google's premium support services start at $150 a month for its bronze package, $400 a month for gold (plus % costs for usage) and tailored pricing starting at $15,000 for its platinum service. The bronze option only offers a response time of four hours, although its platinum service provides a response within 15-minutes.
Image: Shutterstock
-
Google emissions have surged 51% in five yearsNews While overall carbon emissions have increased significantly, the company is making solid progress in bolstering data center energy efficiency.
-
Leaseweb names Alex Wessel as new chief operations officerNews Wessel is tasked with leading centralized teams at Leaseweb’s Amsterdam headquarters.
-
Microsoft is ending support for the Remote Desktop app – here are three alternatives you can try insteadNews Microsoft has announced plans to end support for its Remote Desktop application in just over two months.
-
Microsoft's huge AI spending has investors worried – now the company is changing its financial reporting to highlight successesNews The move comes as investors want more evidence that Microsoft’s AI investment will pay off
-
Could Python in Excel be a boon for cryptocurrency miners?Opinion Free Python compute resource on offer via Microsoft 365 beta preview – what could possibly go wrong?
-
Microsoft defends “negligent” security approach that prolonged vulnerability fix for five monthsNews The tech giant has refuted claims that its practices have left customers “in the dark”
-
Microsoft Build 2023: Microsoft Fabric and oodles of Azure AI integrations announcedNews Microsoft Fabric aims to greatly improve developer productivity and simplify real-time analytics
-
Five ways to reduce Kubernetes costsTutorials With cutting expenditure a business imperative, there are several ways enterprises can reduce Kubernetes costs
-
Azure spending notifications for customers unavailable until March, Microsoft warnsNews Customers have been advised to manually monitor Azure usage and costs until a fix is implemented
-
Microsoft cloud revenue still sky-high as device sales continue to slideNews The company's latest earnings call revealed that Azure cloud products delivered better-than-expected results while numbers in other divisions fell substantially
